Plaza Café

Though Santa Fe’s Plaza has much history to take in, only one restaurant here seeks to replicate beloved ’50s-style American diner food. Enter Plaza Café and you’ll immediately take in a visual of booths, four-top tables and round, rubber stools that give the restaurant a refurbished, retro feel. On the walls, posters of classic films like the 1948 western Albuquerque and drawings of “Old Santa Fe” add to the familiar aromas of burgers and fries. As for the food, Plaza Café is known to do the classic very well. If you’re looking for new adventurous flavors fused into meals that try to reinvent the wheel, eat elsewhere. If, however, you know what you want and you want it cooked well, go no further. Take, for instance, the BLT—a sandwich big enough to hold with both hands. The usual ingredients come packed with fresh avocado stuffed inside two toasted wheat bread slices. The bacon, served thick cut, has a good chew to it and the mayo is served liberally. Another standard diner meal is the meatball sandwich, which is served open-faced with mildly spicy marinara sauce and soft, chewy mozzarella cheese.